Local Republican legislators are on board — to a degree — with overhauling Pennsylvania’s school funding formula, as a Commonwealth Court judge ruled last month.

Both state Rep. Martin Causer, R-Turtlepoint, and state Sen. Cris Dush, R-Brookville, agreed with Gov. Josh Shapiro’s assertion earlier this week that Republican legislative leaders do not plan to appeal the court’s ruling.

“We would certainly welcome a decision from legislative leaders not to appeal,” said Matt Splain, superintendent of Otto-Eldred High School and president of Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools. “The work toward a sustainable remedy needs to start as soon as possible. Systemic constitutional deficiencies are harming school children now.”

The current system of school funding has districts relying largely on property taxes. In poor districts with a smaller tax base, that just isn’t adequate, Splain has explained.

“I have always supported funding for local schools,” Causer said. “When you talk about school funding and the formulas used, it’s very complex. We have to be careful in making sure that changes don’t negatively impact rural schools.

“There’s a growing push in Harrisburg to allocate resources based on the number of students. That’s not going to help,” Causer said. He mentioned Shapiro’s increase of $567 million in the proposed budget, but added, “The governor proposed an increase in funding but did not propose a formula. Even he said it’s going to take time to make changes.”

However, it’s also the job of elected officials to be vigilant stewards of taxpayers’ money. So while Causer is certainly in favor of equality in school funding, he was careful to note that can’t be a blank check.

“What is enough? That question does recur all the time. I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten an answer for that,” he said. “We’ve appropriated millions and millions. At what point are we caught up? I don’t know that. I don’t know what enough really is.”

Causer added, “We want all kids to have the same opportunities to succeed. Maybe that’s not all about money. We want each school district to be fairly funded by the state.”

Both Causer and Dush said that all stakeholders need to be involved in the process of creating a fair funding system.

“The funding formula is not effective in getting the dollars in a way that is responsive to the needs of the individuality of each of the schools,” the senator said.

“When things that the state and federal government have done have resulted in flight from our rural areas, we just don’t have the tax base. We have an increasingly aging population,” Dush continued. “With overall funding issues, we’ve got to come up with a better system.”

Everything has to be on the table, he said, including things like potential consolidations of school districts’ administrations.

Dush mentioned how some of the “poorest” school districts in the state — like those in his district — have some of the most dedicated teachers, some of the best programs and graduate some of the brightest students.

“I have a feeling more of our students are getting a better education,” he said, lamenting that the best exports from Pennsylvania have been its educated children. The state and federal government needs to make sure unfunded mandates stop driving up costs of education.

“There’s so many facets to the funding — structure, security, teachers’ pay, administration, transportation costs,” the senator said. “Everybody’s interested in getting this right.

“The Republican caucus in the Senate, it was unified, we’re definitely not interested in fighting this. We know there is a problem and we want to put our best foot forward in being part of the solution.”

All the people involved in the school funding discussions have acknowledged that the process of fixing the situation will be complicated, and likely time consuming. But it’s one that Splain is eager to start.

“We look forward to getting down to work with legislative leaders and the governor, as the court ordered, to create a constitutionally compliant school funding system that provides every child an effective and contemporary education, regardless of zip code,” Splain said. “We need to see a substantial investment in education funding this year and a planning process starting now so that we are ready next year to implement a comprehensive remedy to repair the state’s discriminatory, unconstitutional funding system.”